LB 1027 
.B3 
Copy 1 




WALTER P. BECKWITH 



DRILL 



A CHAPTER OF PEDAGOGY 



By WALTER P. BECKWITH 

Principal of the State Normal 
School at Saleiti, Mass. 



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SALEM, MASS. 
Newcomb & Gauss, 1'rinters 

1905 



LIBRARY oToONeHessJ 
I wo Copies Meceivou I 

MAR 2 1905 

^ Coi>yri£(iv triuy 



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XXc. 






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Copyright, 1905 
By Walter P. Beckwith 



Limited Edition 



No. 



DRILL. 

The ultimate result aimed at in mental training 
is power. There are certain immediate or direct 
results, such as the acquisition of knowledge and 
the mastering of skill, and these are sometimes undu- 
ly exalted in the minds of both teacher and pupil. 
But it cannot be doubted that the best, the richest 
and the highest result is the end to which the effort 
made in acquiring knowledge and in mastering skill 
contributes ; the knowledge and skill, so often esti- 
mated to be the ends, are really, in a large view, 
merely the means to the attainment of a higher end, 
— the ultimate result of the process called education. 

Not even the teacher is always conscious of this 
ultimate end, — still less is the pupil. The activity by 
which knowledge is acquired and skill mastered is 
usually at the focus of the thought and consciousness 
of all the parties concerned, so^that it is not strange 
that many people,- — even intelligent people, — some- 
times lose sight altogether of the most important 
purpose. The oversight is promoted by the further 



fact that it is comparatively easy to test the imme- 
diate results of the search for knowledge and the 
effort for skill, while the growth of power is by its 
nature a somewhat baffling and apparently intangi- 
ble process. In every spiritual experience it is diiifi- 
cult to observe with intelligence and to estimate 
with justice and accuracy what one has attained, — 
and the higher and finer the phenomena with which 
we are dealing, the greater the diflficulty becomes. 

This is not to say that the knowledge and skill 
are in themselves unimportant, or that the processes 
by which they are acquired are indifferent in effi- 
ciency and value. On the other hand, the richer 
the knowledge acquired, the more delicate the skill 
mastered, the more rational the processes by which 
both are sought, the finer and nobler will be the re- 
sults in the form of power. It is our purpose, at this 
time, to make a distinct application of this fact to 
the teacher's work, and to show how some portions 
of it may be done in a more reasonable manner than 
is always the case, and according to such principles 
as to yield a greater return. 

Knowledge, — using the term in a very compre- 
hensive sense, — is the first result of mental activity. 
The teacher's part, in the acquisition of knowledge 
by the pupil, is the work of instruction. The teacher 



himself is a mediator between the pupil and the sub- 
ject or object to be known, and it is his function to 
bring that subject or object into such relations with 
the appropriate faculty that knowledge may be the 
result. Many of the questions which arise at this 
point as to ways and means are really answered by 
natural inference ; other problems deal simply with 
the conditions of effective effort. 

The work of instruction, technically considered, 
is complete when the right relations have for the 
moment been established between the knowing 
mind and that which is to be known. The pupil 
then has a momentary grasp of what he is being 
taught. But it is very evident that this grasp may, 
and. in most cases probably does, fall far short of 
what is necessary, if he is either to possess the knowl- 
edge in any proper sense of the word, or to have 
such facility in its employment as to make it really 
valuable, or to gain any genuine and permanent 
power from the exercise of his mental faculties. 

The special purpose of instruction is a mastery 
of general facts or principles. It employs a process 
which is inductive, — speaking in a general sense ; it 
is the method of the discoverer, of the explorer ; but 
it may fail of complete conquest, and it certainly 
does not enrich the conquered province by the apper- 



ceptive processes of the learner himself and give to it 
that value which comes from assimilative interpre- 
tation and from application. It is essential to 
rational processes of learning, but it cannot be 
regarded as the entire process of learning. 

Much, therefore, remains for the learner to do, 
and in the necessary further activity, there is much 
work for the teacher, and the pupil still needs the 
help of his teacher. The necessary further direction 
has been given the name of drill, the purpose of which 
is to bring all that has been learned within the ready 
command of its possessor and to give him skill or 
facility in its use. 

The view frequently, — perhaps even commonly, — 
held of the nature and functions of drill has unfortu- 
nately been both imperfect and erroneous. In the 
minds of many it has been supposed to signify 
merely that mechanical and merciless repetition 
which in reality ought to play a very small part, 
relatively speaking, in school work, and which is 
necessary with only a small portion of the subject- 
matter with which schools deal. Repetition, in some 
form or other, either open or concealed, is indeed 
the essential and the distinguishing quality of drill, 
and there are certain foims of knowledge as to 
which it seems necessary to make it very effective, 

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even if it proves to be somewhat irksome to the 
pupils. The perfect command of certain arbitrary 
symbols, — like figures, letters, signs and the like, — 
and of certain elementary and frequently used items 
of knowledge, — like the facts of the multiplication 
table and the formation of plurals, — is so absolutely 
essential that such command must be secured at 
any cost of time or effort. The essential unattrac- 
tiveness of even such work as this may be somewhat 
mitigated by simple devices, but sight must not be 
lost of the end to be attained. 

It is, however a great mistake to suppose either 
that this is the only department of school work 
wherein drill is necessary, or that, being necessary 
in other departments, it must be carried on in this 
manner. From one or the other of these mis-con- 
ceptions, arises the unflattering opinion, held by 
both teachers and pupils, of drill. 

The fact is, as we shall attempt to show, that 
instruction and drill are supplementary to each 
other in the work of the teacher, — the former being 
inductive, the latter deductive ; the former giving 
one the grasp of principles, the latter skill in their 
application ; the former being theoretical, the latter 
practical ; the former being the method of the explorer, 
the latter of the settler ; the former making conquests 



of the unknown, the latter reducing it to the service 
of truth and putting it into its proper place. 

If, then, that part of the teacher's work which is 
properly called drill is so extensive, varied, and im- 
portant as the above contrasts would signify, it is 
very plain that it must have other varieties and 
other means of operation than mere repetition, 
mechanical and unadorned. Bearing in mind its pur- 
pose, — to give the pupil full mastery of the general 
principles to which he has been introduced by 
instruction, so that they may be present, not simply 
for recall as verbal forms, but may be really a part 
of the working equipment of the learner, — let us 
inquire how this purpose may be attained. 

It should be clear to every thoughtful student of 
mental activities in himself and in others that merely 
verbal mastery does not imply a sufificient degree of 
possession. An elementary idea cannot be originally 
received except through the senses ; a complex idea 
cannot be communicated through its word, unless its 
elements have been previously mastered and unless 
the relations between them are clearly understood. 
'' Ideas before words " is a fundamental requisite of 
good learning, as well as of good teaching. In the case 
of complex ideas an understanding of the relations 
according to which the elements are combined is as 

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essential as a mastery of the elements themselves. 
This complete, working mastery is not assured by 
the ability to recall and repeat the statement of a 
given principle, even if it has been formulated as 
the result of an excellent inductive process. No 
induction likely to be employed in teaching is exten- 
sive enough to assure a working command of a 
general principle, — especially of one which is fairly 
complex in its nature and far-reaching in its appli- 
cation. One may seem to secure such a command ; 
for the moment he may actually comprehend the 
contents and bearings of the new truth, but the 
experience of every teacher will plainly show that 
such a command is extremely likely to be incomplete 
in its nature and fleeting in its duration. 

The inductive process needs to be supplemented 
by deduction. The principle needs to be tested by 
other applications, — differing in non-essential qual- 
ities from the cases previously employed. Has the 
child learned that the price multiplied by the quan- 
tity equals the cost ? It is not enough that he knows 
this for a single article at a given price and his 
reflections regarding it must not be narrowed by 
such conditions. He cannot be said to know the 
principle, in the proper sense of the term, until his 
applications of it, with any article at any price, are 



independent of any conscious re-statement, or even 
of any conscious re-thinking of the verbal form of 
the principle. 

Has a pupil been taught, from the study of a few 
examples, whose qualities and characteristics he has 
well mastered, the nature of a river system ? This 
inductive process will not insure his future command 
or recall of the essential elements of that idea. His 
future work must be adapted to do more than to 
test his command of what he has already studied ; 
it must make sure that he will be able to measure 
other examples apparently similar by the standard 
of his induction and to determine whether or not 
they fall within its conditions. 

A great variety and number of other illustrations 
of the same sort, easily obtained, might not serve to 
make the point more clear or emphatic. 

It is not intended to disparage the inductive ele- 
ment of the teacher's work. Much teaching is 
doubtless faulty and ineffective by reason of imper- 
fect inductions. It fails properly to lead the pupil 
up to the mastery of general ideas and principles, 
or, ignoring entirely the inductive process, it authori- 
tatively declares the same. But, while all this is 
true, it is at least a question whether teaching is not 
quite as often weak and ineffective because the 



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teacher often regards his work as complete when 
the generalization has been secured, by fair means^ 
or by foul, and its statement extorted from the child. 

The mistakes in this phase of teaching are not all 
made in the elementary schools. In the high 
schools, and even in the colleges, the work in the 
sciences themselves, strange to say, is not infre- 
quently open to the same criticism. The error 
arises from the attempt to cover too much ground. 
Many a course, in the higher institutions of learning, 
would be far more profitable to those who pursue it, 
if it presented fewer principles and insisted upon a 
greater variety and thoroughness of applications. 

The exceeding prominence of the lecture system, 
supplemented, as it is, by written examinations for 
testing the proficiency of pupils and students, coupled 
with a meagre amount of laboratory and other indi- 
vidual and independent work, contributes to the 
partial failure of teaching on the deductive side. 
Laboratory exercises and other forms of nominally 
independent work that are offered are often so 
weakened and emasculated by excessive minuteness 
of direction and supervision as well-nigh to destroy 
their value as agencies for the development of indi- 
vidual power. Poor teaching is not made good by 
giving it the laboratory label. No considerable 



observation of much of the work so designated is 
necessary to convince an unprejudiced observer that 
it is quite as easy to fritter away time and to secure 
inadequate and unsatisfactory results in the so-called 
laboratory courses as in those that bear the older 
and more unpretentious designations. Facility of 
manipulation, fullness of observation and accuracy 
of inference undoubtedly require careful supervision 
and direction, but these are elementary and prepar- 
atory. A course which ceases at the point when 
some slight power in these particulars has been 
attained, which does not enable the worker to go 
on with some individual and independent success 
in testing and discovering other applications of the 
principle he is studying has very slight value in the 
development of power. 

So-called laboratory work in scientific subjects is 
also often very defective and unsatisfactory on the 
expression side of training in the conventional forms 
of language. If the study of science has the value 
it is supposed to have, the student of such branches 
is able to express his thoughts with clearness, vigor 
and directness. Surely it is not going beyond the 
bounds of truth to say that this result is rarely at- 
tained ; the note-books of students in such subjects 
are very often exceedingly faulty in these respects. 



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One often feels in examining them that only sUght 
attention has been given to this part of the work and 
that the teachers themselves must either overlook 
or ignore its great importance. 

In excessive eagerness to make a given course 
comprehensive and complete is to be found the 
explanation of these failures. In other words, the 
work ceases with a verbal mastery of the principle 
involved, — ^a mastery as fleeting as it is imperfect. 

Not many places, indeed, may be found where 
all pretense of using the inductive method in 
instruction is abandoned and where the learners are 
simply directed to " learn the rule and then do just 
what it says," — as was formerly very common. But 
after the illustrative and explanatory examples have 
led to the induction desired, it is still very common 
for the teacher to delude himself and his class with 
the belief that the work is complete. The mistake 
consists in a failure to recognize the fact that in 
true learning induction and deduction are not two 
methods. They are, instead, two essential parts of 
one method ; the deduction is as necessary as the 
induction ; drill can no more be omitted than in- 
struction. 

An application of this direction to the teacher's 
work does not contradict the general fact that drill 

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always involves repetition. If one is endeavoring 
to fix in his mind the form of an arbitrary character, 
or the elementary and frequently used fact that 
6 plus 7 equals 13, it is easy, of course, to recognize 
the existence and use of repetition in the drill which 
is given to secure the desired end. It is not, how- 
ever, elementary and isolated facts alone that can 
be repeated. Principles or general ideas are sus- 
ceptible to the same treatment, and that is precisely 
what they receive in the applications that should 
be made of them when a temporary and verbal 
mastery has been secured. It makes no difference 
in the method of treatment from what department 
of learning the principle is derived. All branches 
of science and all other forms of knowledge which 
are susceptible of being reduced to any kind of 
generalizations call, according to their content and 
their relations, for the same method of treatment 
One easily sees an added dignity given by this 
view to the work of drill, and it ceases to be in his 
view a merely mechanical exercise. Because of 
the necessary increase of variety, the interest of 
the learner is vastly stimulated; because of his 
added interest, a new pleasure, previously unknown, 
will be experienced. Learning ceases to be drudg- 
ery and becomes a process of the utmost attractive- 

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ness. Genuine, thorough-going activity of the 
mind is not irksome ; the parrot-like repetition of a 
task, without variety or life, is always irksome. 
The mature mind may make a secondary or derived 
sort of interest serve the purpose; but the child 
cannot do so, and even the adult is conscious of the 
added effort and the consequent loss of fruitfulness 
in his labor. 

But there are other possibilities for fixing, clari- 
fying and rendering practical the knowledge that 
may be acquired, which should also be regarded as 
coming within the range of drill. These consist in 
a study of the various relations which exist between 
different items of knowledge, whether these be 
separate facts or generalizations. It is well to 
remind ourselves that isolated facts, or even isolated 
generalizations, are comparatively useless, and that, 
therefore, our knowledge of such is also com- 
paratively useless, unless it is brought into its 
appropriate relations, in our thought, with other 
facts or generalizations. This is only to say that 
scientific knowledge is more valuable and effective 
than ordinary knowledge. The acquisition of 
knowledge, indeed, must begin with its elements; 
this kind of work is characteristic of the young 
child's activity. But even the knowledge of the 

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young child must have its organization begun early. 
There is no era in the development of a human 
mind when it suddenly comes into the possession 
of knowledge in its scientific form. The percep- 
tion of scientific knowledge is, indeed, more charac- 
teristic of and appropriate to the study of a later 
period than at the beginning; but the beginning 
should recognize so clearly the end to be sought 
that the teacher may be able to apprehend without 
error the part finally to be taken by each new 
acquisition in the complete scheme. 

It is only by understanding the vital and essential 
relations between different ideas and thoughts that 
an apprehension of the scientific conclusion can be 
secured. It is our ideas, therefore, of the relations 
of separate items of knowledge, that are of greatest 
importance. We cannot, in fact, be said to know 
a given truth, unless we understand its relations to 
other truths. These relations are made evident 
through comparison, and comparison is the very 
essence of the act of thinking. Speaking of the 
elements of knowledge, it is the absence of those 
ideas which are the product of comparison that 
makes the difference between the knowledge of a 
child and that of an adult, or between the knowledge 
of the desultory observer and that of a thorough 

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scientist. It is this power of apprehending relations 
that is characteristic of a true scientist. 

If this fact is accepted, there is no reason why 
this form of study should not be recognized as a 
valuable form of drill, which we have defined as the 
means whereby knowledge is fixed in the human 
mind and made available for skillful and facile use. 

It is not a form to be used separately from and 
independently of the forms already described and 
advocated ; but it is an additional form to be used 
sparingly or generously, according to the nature of 
the subject-matter under consideration, the degree 
of the learner's development, and the end sought 
in mastering that particular portion of truth. 

It may possibly serve us in attempting to realize 
how vital a matter this is if we recall how generally 
and extensively we employ forms of comparison in 
our usual mental activity and in our daily language. 
The comparison of adjectives and adverbs is a 
much more important feature of our language than 
the space it occupies in our grammars would lead 
one to conclude. But nouns and verbs exist in 
groups, — the members of each group capable of 
being so arranged that they represent a scale of 
meaning, proceeding from small to great, or from 
weak to strong. Many conjunctions also serve the 

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same purpose. The fact that these symbols exist 
in every language proves that there are correspond- 
ing processes in the human mind, the results of 
whose operations men desire to express. 

In fact, words themselves have little meaning 
except as they are employed in relation to other 
words. If the whole theory of number is not ex- 
pressed by the hypothesis that it is based upon ratio, 
this at least is a part of the truth, and the rest 
must be sought in other hypotheses which still 
involve some relation. If enumeration is the basis 
of number, then the relation upon which number 
is built is the equality of its units. In the study 
of size, equality or inequality is the first idea that 
is presented. The study of generalization itself 
presents the same phenomena, in this respect, as 
the studv of number. 

Can these considerations be made more obvious 
by the presentation of concrete illustrations of work 
based upon them, that may fairly be called drill.'* 
The purposes for which drill stands must be kept 
in mind. Now suppose that the pupil is ready, in 
his study of geography, to begin his consideration 
of the continents. He is most likely to study 
North America first, though, so far as our present 
purpose is concerned, the especial one chosen makes 

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no great difference. He does his work according 
to a definite topical outline, constructed so as to be 
adapted to his mental ability and to the time at his 
command. The shape, area, coast-line, land and 
water conformations, river systems, primary and 
secondary highlands, etc., etc., will be among the 
points to which his attention is directed. This 
study will put within his command for the time- 
being, at least, the facts relating to the continent 
in question. When this shall have been completed, 
he takes up another continent according to the 
same general plan. But at every point, he is re- 
quired to make comparisons and to discover the 
relations between the corresponding facts relating 
to the two continents. Then a third one is studied 
and the process of comparison — or the discovery of 
relations, — is continued with the three continents 
in mind. The work goes on, until all have received 
consideration. At the end of this study, it is 
safe to affirm that he will have the facts relating to 
the one first studied firmly fixed in his mind, and 
the knowledge so perfectly grasped that it will be 
within his ready and easy command. 

In such work, there is repetition, but it is secured 
in such a manner that the process has not only 
fixed the old knowledge, but has added to its 



stores. Such a method is susceptible of wide and 
numerous applications. It is by no means peculiar 
to geography, though other fine illustrations, — like 
the study of trade centers, river systems, means of 
communication and travel, animal and vegetable 
life, and occupations, — could easily be drawn from 
that field. 

In history, this method might be employed, in 
greater or less degree, in the study of different eras 
of a nation'slife, of great men, of military campaigns, 
of political parties, of important social movements. 
In mastering the fundamental operations of arith- 
metic, the process of long division, if the examples 
are required to be proved, involves a review of the 
three preceding processes. In grammar, everything 
in a properly constructed course, leads up to the 
analysis of the sentence, or, starting with the 
sentence, descends to the words and comes back to 
the sentence, making possible the same kind of 
comparison and also involving application of princi- 
ples, — the kind of drill previously discussed. 

Other examples might be given almost with- 
out limit of number. The net results are to fix in 
the minds of the learners the fact originally acquired, 
and to multiply to an enormous extent their knowl- 



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edge of the relations existing among the different 
items of truth. 

Such work has other elements of utility. It is 
not undertaken in the interest of a training of the 
memory, but such is the community of interest 
among the mental faculties, — as well as among the 
separate portions of the great body of truth, — that 
it promotes, — nay, it necessarily includes, — the 
training of the memory. For it is a fundamental 
element in the improvement of the memory that an 
increase of the associations by which ideas are 
held, — especially if those associations be of the 
permanent and logical sort, — promotes both the 
readiness and the accuracy of the memory. The 
manner in which the original act of learning was 
performed is the important factor in aiding recall. 
If facts are originally mastered through their im- 
portant relations to other facts, not only are asso- 
ciations increased, but the right kinds of associations 
are multiplied. The most difficult of all our mental 
possessions to retain and recall are those that are 
isolated and individual. So it is clear that the kinds 
of drill which are rational and interesting serve us 
better, — even for the lower acts of memory, — than 
those which are purely arbitrary and mechanical. 

Facts, indeed, may be fixed in the mind by simple 



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MAR 2 19C3 ''K 



repetition. But, in these days of rapidly widening 
knowledge, when the call is for men who can use 
what they know instantly and unerringly, it seems 
a desirable achievement to make mental effort as 
fruitful as possible. Industries are made profitable 
by appliances that increase the product, that prevent 
waste, that utilize every by-product. An analogous 
result in mental training should be sought with at 
least equal eagerness. To this end, every improve- 
ment in methods of teaching will surely contribute. 



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